Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed,” which replaced the “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” is failing miserably in the ratings for CBS, reports The Daily Beast and LateNighter:
When Colbert, 62, left CBS on Thursday, so too did all of his viewers. The first episode of Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed to premiere at Colbert’s previous 11:35 pm time slot drew just 995,000 viewers, according to initial Nielsen data reported by LateNighter.
By comparison, Colbert’s series finale attracted more than 6.7 million viewers via the same metric, meaning CBS saw an 85 percent downturn in viewership just one day after Colbert’s show went dark for good.
Comics Unleashed also failed to match any of its late-night peers, with Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon each earning more than 1.5 million viewers on the same night. And while Fallon aired a new episode, Kimmel’s was a rerun…
In April, CBS revealed that Allen, 65, had purchased Colbert’s marquee timeslot for “tens of millions,” where he would air his show, Comics Unleashed, and sell his own commercial space directly to advertisers. The show will be followed by another one of Allen’s programs, Funny You Should Ask, giving the billionaire two hours of uninterrupted airtime on CBS.
(Sources: The Daily Beast, LateNighter, Image: ET)